mccclxxxix

An Alliance of Motives

But I want to know how you
got to the baguette.   Transition
is key.   Deign not to eliminate
articles.

Multiple Frasiers.   So he can
get his hair done.   Saturday.
Together and out of town.
Giant morsel of sun.

Driving down.   Backtrack.
An orange chair on his
chest.   2 or 3 chances
for memory.

Into plushed.   We shall
seem.   Out of town.

mccclxxxviii

Good Gracious, Glasnost
(or Thanksgiving on the Baltic)

      Dutch trains like spectacles of insecurity.
                                     —D.W. Lichtenberg


I was closed Wednesday and
discovered getting to a top on
Nob Hill.   Delirious down Hyde
and specifically the part where we

were hanging off a cable car to
get back and deciding maybe
friends would take us there.   Are
you off?   I’m so off.   And so

off we went.   Used to be a word
(pleasant) always meant I should
take a big bite out of him.   Eating
flesh knows the future, or so my

cookie likes to say.   Reading this,
I know, zombies.   So tonight we
take his request.   Talking pictures
with lots of spots, or so suggests

my nephew (He’s all strapping
now, often shirtless.   How simple
we must have been!).   Anyway,
on a whim we fly into a couple of

kitchens in Santa Cruz, fall in love
all Swedish.   It’s like how many
months of this happening?   I
know, but don’t forget:

we all get 2 or 3 chances
on the RSVP.   So today
I’m on a boat to the Spilled
Blood to praise be.   Ah, men.

mccclxxxvii

Sonnet for Sainthood

Magically demented, electro-
magnetic.   But don’t rock the
boat?   Our era-less scene, to
which I return for a turn-on.

Note not to use the word war
nor disbelieve when someone
picks up a rock and hands it
over as a gift.   Seek abhor-

rence.   More at shock.   Not
like that, though.   Come up
from behind like energy.   A
wave of something undisc-

overed.   A fortune in shale,
nor molten obsidion / glass.

mccclxxxvi

In this I am person.

In this way I am old-fashioned.   I am
having a blast but I’m missing my people.

People?   I was not the one who said vacation
is not vacation if you internet.   Close fists on

thumbs; vacate.   Feel my heart to see.   So
there is no shame in awake.   Start renew, with

little fists of a sentence.   Here I am again.   A
clump of dust caught in a cloud.   Enjoy the bit

about things.   About almost not at all.   Cling
but for a second or two.   Marry.   Get even.

mccclxxxv

Try It On Again

Music bubbles on your noggin.   Iced up
grouse, good at Birdhenge.   January
on the South Beach Diet?   Remind
me to say this sometime:

         This is the best
         I’ve ever been.

         While you’re
         getting famous

         I’m getting
         brilliant.

Easter it ain’t.   This hunk of sound a dis-
proportionate secret.   Scribble all night
you Nightscribbler.   Go to Bahamas and
smoke clasped ears with safety pins.

mccclxxxiv

Russian Sonneteer

What do I do but on and on.
Heaven.   Remember when?
I arrived so obvious, dirt of
Russia.   Show up a skeptical

blot.   Honestly my love is
food.   Somewhere afterwards
eternally.   Relax as it comes.
Re-right it and lose 25.   Of

nuclear rays in tiny golden-
rod garden.   Spec blue and
looks great.   Take it as it
comes and in the right di-

rection Heaven.   Re-member
dirt of the obvious, skeptic.

mccclxxxiii

Slowly to Estonia

Bang around a hollow.   Roiled
in on itself.   Listening to a lot of
strings.   Many are trifles.   Tour

requires two hours of walking
on cobblestone streets but gays
like to cycle (see “sold out”).

Speak as if people are paying
attention.   This is what happens
when you take yourself seriously.

mccclxxxii

lightness under curled vapor
                —Barbara Guest

The joke that I am straight
has gone on long enough.
I never paid the two crowns
I owed the photocopier.   He
calls me psychiatric help.   I
said that sounds like a strap
in the right direction.   Can’t
say I wasn’t cautiously ec-
static.   We talk for a while
about rewriting history.
Seems overly possible in
context.   Taut come-ons.
Later, maybe 11 years I
guess, I couldn’t resist.
For posterity.   But
I did anyway.

mccclxxxi

Sour Bosom

Holy hotcakes, Del,
you’ve done it!

mccclxxx

...impending in that it ‘could be’...
not that it isn’t already...

...upon closer inspection, we’re
always in the in-between...

...in transition and afright...is this us
good?

...windmills ashore...cautiously
optimistic...

...after telling me yesterday...I am
constantly...good...indecisive...

lacking us...confidence...tragic-
omic...on the verge of...

...among other things...

mccclxxix

        dealt a rat lust
            —Barbara Guest

You’re unplayed to the hilt.

mccclxxviii

...and create...a larger lather in a
rather lithe lager...nevertheless
it is sumptuous...and...

...this is the story of my life...

...now I am out into the into
and it is good...craggy luggage
hangs from rafters...

...every artist should be studied
within the context of her
sexuality...frostbitten

glands...rude men bear arms...

...topsy-turvy gleanings of neo-
civilization...architectural
longing...

...reconciliation...specifically
numb impending...with regard
to recent moonlight...

...I resent the moon...I stole
it in a beer-mug and give
it to you now...I...

...I could go on becomes
I could go...

mccclxxvii

Whore o’ the Sea

I’m just trying on
the shape of it. Or
what’s that word

I’m doing, taking
tooth for lips, re-
describing purple,

whirring sticker-
shock into narrative?
Nothing in a week

and a half of sour
until   “Morning?” (he
writes).   “Seems to me

you’re a guy likes to
breathe”   (hot / stone).
“I’d do more if I were

you”   (each / stab).   His
next exit makes outer
space a piece of cake.

mccclxxvi

The Spoken Fish

I took the liberty of waking up at
2:37am.   It’s gonna go by so fast.

I’m thirsty, bring me a towel.
Proving to myself that I’m very

set in my ways.   In formal dress
domestic remarks reel into a corpus

known as stanzas (B. Guest).   I
ate a pear – or – I thought about

eating a pear.   The first phrase, be-
ing fiction, begs what is thought?

Be, I guess.   And what to do with
all of the love.   As I slip into sense,

there are three items of fruit on a
table to my left.   Taking an elegant

knife into its plump, green-dimpled
dress, a drippy red blotch of moon,

which portion of the world am I?

mccclxxv

                        there is no sailing but into marmalade

                                                      in a time of marmalade.

                                                                  —Gerrit Lansing


Is it Thursday or Friday?   Is it the weekend?
I dunno.   Lots of talking.   Thank goodness.
Sort of.

And here (interested in spending weekend,
Napa, Russia mebbe) and that.
Somewhere on Saturday night,

emailing all the time, a friend, SFMOMA.
Not the answer.   I lost.

Blue jeans, emotional.   “Constantly running up
explosive personal debts” (Paul Hannigan).

All I can say on that right now.   Guy still works.
Which if you ask some people is part of a problem.

Then Mel’s.   He knows more than most.   For
certain.   Cute, huh?   Or “You would not
want to meet a nicer woman.”

Sort of.   A heart bigger than a sleeve of advert-
isement.   Sympathy notes?   That’s not the
answer.

I kinda wanna be celibate but who knows?
It’s too chilly to sit on this parkbench.

mccclxxiv

          A long flat makes you feel
          like a gypsy pygmy.
                              —Paul Hannigan

So stress...feeling relative...week.
Last night...looks great...fuck again.
Him’s...so miserable...make me...
feeling.   Well, no—

Food for thought...seeming so...
loins.   The tilt of the ship.

mccclxxiii

A bird is flying into a golden age.
The phrase “think tank” and the
word “tanka” make me think
“tank top” – do me wrong?

New dogma years are upon us,
right?   His email address arrives.

mccclxxii

Greetings from Inertia

I only wanted a capful of your
muck.   The funk of it keeps me
wound for days.   Woo’d as I was
in Borup, yet a pimple of a bump
kin, a plebe for life; a lifer.   I mean
it, this drivel campaign.   It’s not a
thing that scars, like a dimple of
soul.   Only the musk of its shadow
and your pink essay appliqué.

mccclxxi

His passion for abstraction is gripping
                                          —Barbara Guest

I have too arrival.   Smack against
olive India this cote is Wayned.
Desire has so little to do with de
stiny.   Except that I made it up-
hill endive and mispounced.

Ringsted.   Reflect invective.

But I didn’t come to swan.   Only
to fair leavened Heather and her
flagpole.   Strip bare the Danish
opening and tsk tsk.   Rather out
of the stinker than into a moil.

mccclxx

Passing Korsør

This is the highway to pizza.   Plush,
auburn pastures and a calamity of
windmills.   A proclivity is not a
calamity.

Jayne Mansfield needs a girdle,
what of it?   I’ve a purple flowering
of the elbow.   Each bouquet –
when compressed (or expressed) –
tethers into a smirk.

Lavender Fusili

mccclxix

“This is destruction.”   Graffiti
on the downgrade.   Here’s a
train thru Denmark, a town of
some size you never hear about.

“Fuck 42.”
Good thing I’m 43 and gay.
“Prik” gets around.   Each
pink flag a dithering swath.

The rain’s gone; Odense
against a big, lazy bruise.
A purple-tinged heart
with “SOS” all over it.